Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Earlier this month, on November 11-14th, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, it was my great privilege to be flown out in my capacity as Pyr Art Director to attend IlluXcon2, a gathering of some of the best sf/fantasy artists in the world for a four-day weekend, exhibiting their art and hanging out with hardcore collectors, art directors, and sf/fantasy art afficionados. This is a rather special convention, the brainchild of Pat and Jeannie Wilshire, and quite impressive for an event only in its second year. It is also somewhat exclusive. The con featured about 50 artists (who I believe are all there only by invitation), some 80-100 art students, several art directors, and a number of high end collectors. I flew in with a student who was coming from Huntsville, Alabama and rode in with a collector who had come in all the way from Kent, England.

The space itself is a gorgeous gallery, adjacent to a student center (where the panels and demos were held), and diagonal from a Bistro that very kindly opened its doors to host the portfolio reviews and be a general meeting destination throughout the weekend. There's not much else around, and the con is hampered by not having a hotel in the area, so there is a lot of shuttling back and forth and grumbling over same. But what it results in is an intimate weekend that is really a tremendous experience.

During the weekend, I got to hang out with some of the greatest living fantasy artists, participate in an art director panel with folks from Wizards of the Coast, Blizzard and elsewhere, and spent about eight hours doing portfolio reviews. It was an exhausting weekend, but one of the most rewarding con experiences of my career to date. Spending a weekend entirely in the company of artists taught me how much I enjoy artists' company, and really reinforced in a way I'd never quite considered just how fulfilling the "art director" part of my job at Pyr is to me. And being forced to quantify my opinions in the portfolio reviews taught me a lot about my own preferences. I get multiple portfolio submissions a week at Pyr, but am never called upon to say much more than "thank you, but this doesn't fit the style of our line." Having to quantify and articulate my response to students who had paid good money to attend the show and were expecting helpful feedback forced me to examine what I know intuitively in ways I hadn't done before. I think I learned a great deal and only hope the students did.

Meanwhile, as to the artists themselves... In addition to talking to childhood heroes Michael Whelan and Boris Vallejo, and spending real time with old friends John Picacio and Dave Seeley, it was wonderful to be in the company of such stellar talents as Caniglia, Dan Dos Santos, Vincent Villafranca, Bob Eggleton, Eric Fortune, Bruce Jensen, Daren Bader, Donato Giancola, Julie Bell, John Jude Palencar, Brom, Justin Gerard, Justin Sweet, Lucas Graciano, Michael Hayes, Scott Altmann, and many more.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

This weekend I'll be Editing Guest of Honor at OryCon31, Oregon's Premier Science Fiction Convention, held November 27-29, 2009 at the Portland DoubleTree Hotel, 1000 NE Multnomah Street, Portland OR 97232. I'll be joining Author Guest of Honor Patricia Briggs, Artist Guest of Honor Lubov, Filk Guest of Honor Jeff Hitchin, and Special Guest Chris Lester. Then at the end of the weekend, I'll be appearing at Powell's massive SF Authorfest III Booksigning at the Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing. Here is my con schedule and Powell's signing information:

Friday1:00PM- 2:00PM
Hawthorne"Exploring the mystique of costumed vigilantes" – Exploring the mystique of Batman, The Phantom, Daredevil and other costumed vigilantes from the golden age of comics and how they have evolved through the passage of time. (Michael Ehart, Lou Anders, Carl Cook)

4:00PM - 5:00PM
Multnomah "Behind the curtain of publishing" How publishing works, what goes on to turn a
manuscript into a book, industry trends, and why readers should care about this stuff. (Lou Anders, Doug Odell, Patricia Briggs)

1:00PM- 2:00PM
Adams"Drowning in slush" - The best and worst of slush. How does slush reading work and who does it? What makes a story stand out from the slush pile? Is there any way around the pile? Are agents now the new slush readers, and how is that working out for the publishing industry? (Colleen Anderson, Maggie Jamison, Deb Taber, Camille Alexa, Lou Anders)

2:00PM- 3:00PM
Morrison"Editing 101: Are Editors Human?" - Editors are notorious for being critical. Being judgmental is, after all, an important component of their job. Knowing what they do, and why they do it can help a writer prepare their work for the editors steely gaze. Both experienced authors and editors offer their opinions. (Grá Linnaea, Lou Anders, Louise Marley/Toby Bishop, Deb Taber)

3:00PM- 4:00PM
Multnomah"Lou Anders Presents" - Lou Anders: A Pyr Presentation. See art for upcoming book covers. This is a premiere event, never before seen by the public. Don't miss this wonderful presentation by our editor Guest of Honor.

12:00PM-1:00PM
Jefferson/Adams "3 Aliens and a Human by Friday: Lou Anders, Artist/Editor Relationship" - How and when editors edit words on a page is pretty clear, but how do things work with editors
and artists? Enquiring minds want to know!

Friday, November 06, 2009

Lately, I've been acquiring titles that I am thinking of as "post-steampunk," or rather, steampunk that has migrated out of Victorian settings into fantasy, urban fantasy, and other alternate historical settings. We'll have books in this category out in 2010 from Adrian Tchaikovsky, Mike Resick, Tim Akers, George Mann and the writing team of Clay and Susan Griffith.

Frostborn

Thrones and Bones

About Me

Lou Anders is the author of the Thrones and Bones series, a middle grade fantasy adventure that begins with the novel Frostborn, published by Random House’s Crown Books for Young Readers. He is a Hugo award winning editor and a Chesley Award winning art director, with six additional Hugo nominations, six additional Chesley nominations, three World Fantasy award nominations, a Shirley Jackson award nomination and a Philip K. Dick award nominations. For ten years, he served as the editorial director of Pyr books. Additionally, he is the editor of nine anthologies, including Swords & Dark Magic (Eos, 2010, with Jonathan Strahan), and Masked (Gallery Books, 2010). He is the author of The Making of Star Trek: First Contact (Titan Books, 1996), and has published over 500 articles in such magazines as The Believer, Publishers Weekly, Dreamwatch, DeathRay, Star Trek Monthly, Star Wars Monthly, Babylon 5 Magazine, Sci Fi Universe, Doctor Who Magazine, and Manga Max. His articles and stories have been translated into Russian, Spanish, Danish, Greek, German, Italian & French.